Robert Putnam’s “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis” has touched off a wave of print and digital commentary. The book chronicles a growing divide between the way affluent kids are raised, in two-parent homes whose parents invest heavily in educating their kids, and the very different, very unstable homes in which poorer kids generally grow up.

When the problems of single-parent families are debated, some will “argue that there are lots of good ways to raise kids outside the straitjacket of mid-century, middle-class mores”.

I have been trying to find a more delicate way to phrase this, but I can’t: This is nonsense. The advantages that two people raising their own biological or jointly adopted children have over “nontraditional” family arrangements are too obvious to need enumeration, but apparently mere obviousness is not enough to forestall contrary arguments, so let me enumerate them anyway.

Raising children the way an increasing percentages of Americans are — in loosely attached cohabitation arrangements that break up all too frequently, followed by the formation of new households with new children by different parents — is an enormous financial and emotional drain. Supporting two households rather than one is expensive, and it diverts money that could otherwise be invested in the kids. The parent in the home has no one to help shoulder the load of caring for kids, meaning less investment of time and more emotional strain on the custodial parent. Children will spend less time with their noncustodial parent, especially if that parent has other offspring. Add in conflict between the parents over money and time, and it can infect relationships with the children. As one researcher told me when I wrote an article on the state of modern marriage, you frequently see fathers investing time and money with the kids whose mother they get along with the best, while the other children struggle along on crumbs.

People often argue that extended families can substitute, but of course, two-parent families also have extended families — two of them — so single-parent families remain at a disadvantage, especially because other members of the extended family are often themselves struggling with the challenges of single parenthood. Extended families just can’t substitute for the benefits of a two-parent family. Government can’t, either; universal preschool is not going to make up for an uninvolved parent, or one stretched too thin to give their kids enough time. Government can sand the rough edges off the economic hardship, of course, but even in a social democratic paradise such as Sweden, kids raised in single-parent households do worse than kids raised with both their parents in the home.

More than 40 percent of American children are now born to unmarried parents, down from just five percent in 1960, according to Pew Research Center. Fifty years ago, the vast majority of adults — 72 percent — were married. The same is true for only about half of adults today. The declines in marriage are especially pronounced in families with lower earnings. Tying the knot is increasingly a marker of class status in America.

Like this:

“I think Sex Ed is equally, if not more, important than mathematics or English”

That quote comes from porn star Tasha Reign, so it should be considered in that context. In any case, parents should not rely on schools to educate their children about this important subject.

We can’t rely on school curriculum to teach future generations about the birds and the bees. This cringe-inducing topic, often considered one of the less serious school subjects (think PE and Driver’s Ed), is glossed over.

On the other hand, another source of sex education probably does more harm than good.

Someone has to tell kids that porn stars are like WWE wrestlers, and that real sex with a real partner isn’t like XXX flicks.

“Pornography is not meant to teach about sexual education, it is meant for adults and has no place in the hands of children,” says porn star and UCLA grad Tasha Reign….

The reality is that 93% of boys and 62% of girls have viewed online pornography by the time they are 18 years old, at least according to one study.

… If participants in this study are typical of young people, exposure to pornography on the Internet can be described as a normative experience, and more study of its impact is clearly warranted.

But “some parents would rather pretend their kids would never look at that stuff”.

“I think some parents have their heads buried in the sand,” says award-winning porn star and sex educator Jessica Drake. “If they don’t talk about it, then this problem doesn’t exist. I think they underestimate what their kids are looking at online.”

… It turns out that the research suggesting that teenagers and pornography are a hazardous mix is far from definitive. In fact, many of the most comprehensive reports on this subject come to conclusions that amount to “we can’t say for sure” shrugs….

One meta-analysis found no causal relationships between porn and risky behavior.

After sifting through those papers, the report found a link between exposure to pornography and engagement in risky behavior, such as unprotected sex or sex at a young age. But little could be said about that link. Most important, “causal relationships” between pornography and risky behavior “could not be established,” the report concluded. Given the ease with which teenagers can find Internet pornography, it’s no surprise that those engaging in risky behavior have viewed pornography online. Just about every teenager has. So blaming X-rated images for risky behavior may be like concluding that cars are a leading cause of arson, because so many arsonists drive.

Parents have to play the biggest role in teaching the “difference between fantasy and reality”.

“Porn is fantasy and I think that kids need to be taught the difference between fantasy and reality, just like in video games or certain movies,” says Drake. “Obviously in a perfect world kids aren’t seeing porn when they are that young, but unfortunately the reality is that they do. It all boils down to education just like everything else really. First we need to educate the parents.”

Like this:

Almost twice as many women as men consider it “very important” that their future spouse have a “steady job”.

… Never-married women place a great deal of importance on finding someone who has a steady job—fully 78% say this would be very important to them in choosing a spouse or partner. For never-married men, someone who shares their ideas about raising children is more important in choosing a spouse than someone who has a steady job.

Franklin & Marshall College president Daniel R. Porterfield offers some advice for high school seniors dealing with “college mania”. His thoughts on how to approach the college application essay seem particularly insightful.

… write an application essay that’s so true to you that you’ll want to read it again in ten years as a snapshot of where you were at age 18. What experiences have shaped you? What questions obsess you? What people inspire you? How do you want to give and grow in college?

Approaching the essay this way may be a helpful tactic for applicants, but the piece matters most for its value to you at one of life’s turning points. And, as I’ve learned from my own applications for schools and jobs, when we honestly and authentically present ourselves and then don’t get selected, it doesn’t feel so bad. In fact, we’re often left with a strong sense of personal integrity.

I believe it’s true that most essay readers can tell if an application essay is authentic and genuinely reveals a student’s perspective. So the advice to “put it in your own words” makes sense. Thus the challenge sometimes becomes how a teacher or parent can help in editing an essay without changing the author’s voice. The first time I tried helping with my kid’s essay, I found myself quickly falling into the trap of obliterating his message and inserting what I thought he should be saying. I learned my lesson, and later I mainly left any editing to his guidance counselor, who seemed to know the right balance between minor corrections and sweeping modifications.

Like this:

We already know that many college freshman are academically unprepared for college, but Professor Claire Potter finds that they are also emotionally and functionally unprepared.

By September, one of the biggest topics for discussion — and one of the biggest gripes — among many college faculty will be how emotionally, and practically, underprepared many of your kids are for their freshman year. Although I now teach the non-traditional, adult students who are becoming the majority of undergraduates, for years I welcomed fresh-faced 18 year olds whose academic preparation often far exceeded their ability to navigate school independently of their parents.

The two major changes I observed over those two decades was an increasing lack of emotional separation between parents and children (with an accompanying rise in students having difficulty making their own decisions); and an increasing tendency, on the part of first year students, to presume that college was more or less similar to high school in its expectations and practices.

Academic and emotional development are certainly related in some respects.

Some possible reasons for students failing to develop independence:

Technology has certainly enabled parents and children to remain emotionally close. Constant texting can mean that young people are relying too much on their parents to make decisions for them.

I think trends in K-12 education have also contributed to this “over-parenting”. From the early grades, the schools encourage the wrong kind of parental involvement. Parents feel forced to help their kids with homework that is developmentally inappropriate, like third-grade projects that require sophisticated Internet research skills. Then, success in middle school often requires advanced organizational skills that drive parents to intercede lest their kid falls behind to a point where he cannot catch up in high school. Instead of helping develop independent students who will be ready to succeed in college, schools are inadvertently promoting excessive reliance on their parents and other adults.

Potter offers some advice to help parents in making their kid a “strong and independent college student”. The first suggestion is to “reduce contact” with a college kid.

… If your kid is going away to college, let him go away. This means not texting and talking every day, or even every other day, or every other other day….

I agree with this advice, and have found it surprising when I hear about some parents who are in constant contact with their adult children. On the other hand, from personal experience I know that some kids are more verbal than others, and are driven to share many details of their lives. As a parent, I can see the advantages and disadvantages of this. Obviously there are some nuances to consider in following Potter’s advice.

Complete details on Potter’s recommendations can be found at the link below.

… nearly 85% of parents plan to offer their children monetary aid after graduation, according to a survey Tuesday from Upromise by Sallie Mae. Almost one-in-three parents plan to provide their grad with financial assistance for up to six months, and around 50% plan to foot bills anywhere from six months to more than five years.

So, what has changed since my son graduated a few decades ago? Sure, new graduates are entering a much more difficult job market than he did, and even those who do secure jobs are unlikely to have the job stability he’s enjoyed. But a difficult job market is only part of the story. Social norms have shifted so that accepting help from Mom and Dad well into your 20s is “OK.”

Psychologists call this trend “emerging adulthood.” As Eileen Gallo and Jon Gallo note in their paper “How 18 Became 26: The Changing Concept of Adulthood,” for a certain socioeconomic set, growing up and moving out—permanently—means downgrading your lifestyle. The authors quote sociologists Allan Schnaiberg and Sheldon Goldenberg as stating:

“The supportive environment of a middle-class professional family makes movement toward independent adulthood relatively less attractive than maintenance of the [extended adolescence] status quo. Many of the social gains of adult roles can be achieved with higher benefits and generally lower costs by sharing parental resources rather than by moving out on one’s own!”

Keeping their 20-something children on the family cell phone plan is one common example of how “sharing parental resources” makes it easier on young adults as they transition to financial independence. Another example is health insurance, where Obamacare now requires family policies to continue coverage for children up to age 26. Individually these are small examples, but in total many parents are heavily subsidizing their adult children’s lifestyle.

Retiring rich is hard enough without paying for your child’s extended adolescence. The job market may be tough for new graduates, but forcing your child to navigate it anyway might just be the best way to help.

Miller believes it’s possible to be supportive without hindering a young adult’s financial and emotional independence, and has some tips that can be read at the link above.

———

Kathryn Buschman, “The New Normal? Some Parents Plan to Aid Children 5 Years after Graduation”, FOXBusiness, May 27, 2014.

Unscheduled, unsupervised, playtime is one of the most valuable educational opportunities we give our children. It is fertile ground; the place where children strengthen social bonds, build emotional maturity, develop cognitive skills, and shore up their physical health. The value of free play, daydreaming, risk-taking, and independent discovery have been much in the news this year, and a new study by psychologists at the University of Colorado reveals just how important these activities are in the development of children’s executive functioning.

Executive function is a broad term for cognitive skills such as organization, long-term planning, self-regulation, task initiation, and the ability to switch between activities. It is a vital part of school preparedness and has long been accepted as a powerful predictor of academic performance and other positive life outcomes such as health and wealth. The focus of this study is “self-directed executive function,” or the ability to generate personal goals and determine how to achieve them on a practical level. The power of self-direction is an underrated and invaluable skill that allows students to act productively in order to achieve their own goals.

This may help explain the recent rise in diagnosed ADHD cases. The structured lives of our children — including play dates, day care, and summer camp — is quite different from the mostly unscheduled days of youngsters growing up even 20 years ago. Could it be that they’re missing out on an important developmental process?

Starting at about age seven or eight I spent lots of time unsupervised by adults, although there were usually older kids around. During the summer I kept busy riding my bike, going to the library, playing with Barbie dolls, swimming at the neighborhood pool, hanging out with friends, watching TV, and doing other similar self-directed activities.

Graduating with major student debt but without plans, as well as dropping out of college, unemployment, underemployment, poorly paid first jobs, sky-high rents and breakups or emotional upheavals can all create a perfect storm and send 20-somethings seeking shelter with mom and dad.

Thanks to closer parent/child relationships, smaller families, a later marriage age and the pressures of hard economic times, that’s a sharp shift since today’s boomer parents were launching their lives. Back then, one of the major milestones en route to adulthood was moving out of your parents’ home after high school.

Forbes offers five tips for surviving your 20-something child’s return to living at home.

Encourage a plan.

Treat grown-up kids as the young adults they’ve become.

Let them know your expectations…before they move in.

Have the money talk.

Consider couple relationships — yours and theirs.

Are most adult kids who live at home paying rent to their parents?

… About half the boomerang kids who move home pay some sort of rent, and almost 90% help with household expenses, according to a 2012 Pew Report. But there are many ways to divvy up what it takes to run a household.

I have a boomerang kid at home, and two things I’ve found very helpful are making sure to treat him like an adult and finding agreement on a plan toward self-sufficiency. I give some advice, but I also try to understand that he is in charge of his life.

Until a few years ago, I was resistant to the idea of a college graduate returning home to live. But the high cost of living in my area along with the sorry state of the jobs market have softened my stance. In fact, living at home is sometimes the better choice since it may be a way of getting a head start on saving for retirement.

The vast majority of Americans have higher incomes than their parents, but that’s in large part because most families have two earners now, she said. Only half have more wealth, she said. Meanwhile, the savings rate is low and unemployment is high. College costs are rising faster than inflation and student loan debt is exploding.

I agree with the majority view, and the bleak jobs picture is a primary reason for my pessimism.

Although the latest jobs report showed that payroll numbers have finally returned to pre-recession levels, there is a negative side to this news.

As good as that might sound, surpassing the previous high-water mark in terms of payroll employment is cold comfort for recent graduates and other new entrants into the work force, as well as for the legions of Americans who lost their jobs in the Great Recession. While payrolls may be back to where they were before the downturn, the working age population has risen by roughly 15 million over the same period.

According to one calculation, the country still needs a “whopping 7 million” jobs to accommodate the needs of a healthy economy. The outlook is dreary.

At a rate of 217K per month with 150K needed to keep pace with population growth, how long will it take us to catch up to that 7 million? Oh …. eight years and nine months.

Perhaps this lowered fertility rate is partly a consequence of the pessimism expressed by the latest poll. Paradoxically, lower birth rates could be exacerbating the downhill slide of our economy.

The consequences of America’s recession baby bust are already significant. “We’re getting to the point where it’s dropped far enough and for a long enough period of time that it’s going to have serious implications” for the population and the economy, Mather said. With declining fertility, the U.S. population would age, and ultimately the labor force would decline as older workers retire — a trend already well underway with the Baby Boom generation reaching their mid-60s.

The financial crisis “has had the most punishing impact on demographic trends of anything since the Great Depression,” Johnson said.